We created this site in March 2000 with the hope of expanding our own family research, and, in the process, discovered a wealth of Port Hope/Hope Township resources. Hopefully, you will find something of value in these 200+ pages and might have something you can share.
In 2017, we were honoured to have the Ontario Genealogical Society (OGS) approach us to partner with them to ensure our future continued online presence. To access their website, please click the OGS logo.
- Barbara Kyle & Peter Bolton
Note As many of our visitors use mobile devices, we have modified the entire site so that the web pages are sized correctly for better viewing on smaller screens. The content and overall appearance is unchanged.
Updates
- 01 September 2021: 1994 BMDs completed to 01 September (152 entries)
- 01 September 2021: Updated George Sweanor's Military Contributions of a Small Town with Jozef Dragun and Edward William Walker Jr.
- 29 July 2021: An addition to the Presbyterian cemetery database with the addition of Matthew McConkey
To display a page, click the 
icon.
Our family
We are hoping that relatives will browse through these family pages, recognize a connection, and get in touch!
- Bolton, Gray, Powell, Thomas (Buckinghamshire/Middlesex)
- Skitch, Peardon, Bailey, Harris (Cornwall/Devon)
- Nicholas (Yorkshire)
- Holloway (England)
- Kyle, Carse, Oliver, White (Northumberland, England)
- Currie (Argyll, Scotland)
- Monaghan, Mills, Beatty, McCleary, Campbell (Ireland)
- Frederick, Rush (Loyalists from New Jersey)
- Greenleaf (Bergen Co., New Jersey)
- Marshall, O'Connell (Quebec)
Perhaps your family
Feel free to list the local surname(s) you are researching.
Local family histories we have received. If you would like yours added, please remove any living relatives from the file, due to privacy concerns.
Port Hope and Hope Township resource materials
Speed up your browsing of our 200+ pages with this site search engine. Spelling varies considerably on many of the earlier documents, so you might still want to do some manual searching.
Note There may be some pages that this free version does not search.
|
||
| Search engine by freefind |
Census
The following census (and related) materials are available for online searching:
- Crown Deeds of Hope Township
- Elias Smith's 1799 Hope Township report
- Augustus Jones' 1799 Hope Township report
- 1801-1806 Port Hope/Hope Township Oaths of Allegiance
- 1802-1807, 1842-1847 Hope Township tax assessment rolls
- 1803-1841, 1850 Hope Township census indexes
- 1847, 1913 Port Hope assessment rolls
- 1851-1921 Port Hope/Hope Township census returns
- 1856, 1857/'58 business directories
- 1890, 1891 financial reports of the Methodist Church, Canton Circuit
- c1898, 1900 Port Hope Bell Telephone directories
- 1920 Hope Township voters list
- 1867-1955 land registry instruments indexes
- 2008 Port Hope/Hope Township assessment rolls
Vital statistics
An index of some 32,500 local births, marriages, and deaths, as reported in the 1832-1994 Port Hope newspapers.
152 Port Hope/Hope Township marriages (1804-1854) from Reid's Marriage Notices of Ontario, Wilson's Ontario Marriage Notices, and Marriage Bonds in Ontario.
133 baptisms (1854-1884) from Our Lady of Mercy Roman Catholic Church (Port Hope) registers
The entire BMD (1853-1920) image set for the Church online has not been indexed, so you will need to go through them page by page. Open a free account with the LDS, at which point the above link will work.
148 baptisms (1875-1914) from the Garden Hill Presbyterian Church register
Port Hope/Hope Township extractions from Trent University Archive's extensive collection (#83-016), beginning with this listing of 273 births (1869-1872) from the United Counties of Northumberland and Durham Vital Statistics fonds and transcribed through the kindness of Archivist Bernadine Dodge.
238 Port Hope/Hope Twp. marriages (1869-1872) from the United Counties of Northumberland and Durham Vital Statistics fonds (#83-016). Included are several recently-discovered marriage entries in the 1825-1848 range.
Extracts from the United Counties of Northumberland and Durham Vital Statistics Additions fonds - 1838-1855 (#84-004): baptismal records; marriage lists; and burial lists. The transcription maintains the original spelling - except where known errors have been corrected - so it would be advisable to manually check the database, in addition to using the search engine.
260 Port Hope/Hope Township inquests from the United Counties of Northumberland and Durham Court Records fonds - 1832-1914 (#84-020). This transcription also maintains the original spelling, so you should manually search the database.
Examples of the inquest procedure are shown for Robert Best, who died of exposure in the northern section of Hope Township in 1867, and for James McCabe, a Kingston Penitentiary escapee, shot in Port Hope by Constable William Rankin in 1883.
Vital statistics from local family Bibles
CemSearch—an online database of 400,000+ interments. Information is also provided about local cemeteries.
Lot map for Zion United Church Cemetery (1839-1972) located in Hope Township on Con. 3, Lot 31
142 death/funeral notices from 1861-1916
Local funeral home records dating from 1864
Elizabeth Hancocks, of Generation Press, has given permission to list the Port Hope/Hope Township probate entries from Surrogate Court Index of Ontario (1859-1900) Volume 4, Northumberland and Durham Counties.
1,400+ probates (1821-1997) of area residents
Military
George's Sweanor's Military Contributions of a Small Town, honouring over 2,200 Port Hope veterans of all of our nation's conflicts
Conflicts prior to the two world wars
1st Regiment of the Durham Militia (15 Dec 1837)
1st-6th Durham Battalions of the Militia of Canada (1847)
1st Battalion of the Durham Regiment of Militia (1856)
The Prince of Wales' Canadian Dragoons (c1857), an article by Neil Dukas
Royal Hospital Chelsea out-pensioners in the Toronto District (1859)
Port Hope Light Infantry Volunteer Company (01 May 1866)
Photograph of the 46th Battalion band at the Commons, southeast of the viaduct (1869)
Photograph of the Fenian Raid veterans of the 46th Battalion of Port Hope (c1870)
With the Midland Battn. during the North West Rebellion of 1885—William E. Young's personal diary
From the 15 Nov 1935 Evening Guide, featuring a reprint of the 1915 Fenian Raid veterans' banquet
World War I
Officers of the 136th Durham Overseas Battalion (15 May 1916)
Decisions of the Appeal Tribunal in Port Hope and Hope Township cases (25 Jan 1918)
Hope Township WWI soldiers (24 Dec 1918)
Book of Remembrance: Local Participants in the Great War (1914-1918)
This transcription of the original book includes photographs on permanent display at the Town Hall.
A page of biographies and/or photos of soldiers who took part in the Great War, but were not commemorated.
134 letters written at the WWI front and published in the local newspaper. Many of these letters are included in the Port Hope Archives' 2007 reprint of the Book of Remembrance.
Library and Archives Canada's digitization of 620,000+ Canadian Expeditionary Force WWI personnel service files
Library and Archives Canada's digitization of the images from the Circumstances of Death Registers for World War I soldiers. The records for Sims-Z have not survived
World War II and the Korean War
Biographies and/or photos of the WWII and Korean War soldiers whose names are inscribed on the Port Hope Cenotaph
Service Files of the Second World War - War Dead, 1939-1947 at Library and Archives Canada
Photos of some of Port Hope's WWII veterans, published in the Evening Guide's 11 May 1945 issue
Miscellaneous historical
Letters, diaries, and logs penned by residents of the Port Hope area, dating from 1819), including the 1890 log of Sylvan Glen Camp
Port Hope hotels and their owners/operators over the years
Early Council: the Chief Magistrates/Mayors of Port Hope from 1834 to the present day (a work in progress)
By-Laws of the newly-formed Board of Police (1834)
Port Hope in 1834, with map
Port Hope's daguerreotypists, ambrotypists, & photographers in the 1850s-1940s (a useful aid for identifying ancestral studio portraits)
Port Hope harbour, as shown in an 1854 plan for the proposed Grand Trunk Railway, with links to an 1831 letter to the editor about the harbour conditions, and the 1846 projected harbour plans
Louis Bertolotto of 1830s London, England, flea circus fame, buried in Port Hope's Union Cemetery
495 local emigrants, mostly to the United States (1889)
Port Hope Fire Brigade members (1891), with some history of the Brigade
Portions of the Port Hope Model High School Register (1891-'92) and the complete Training Register (1884-1904) for those in teacher training. There's also a link to a report card from 1880.
Hope Township School Section student Registers (1892, 1893, 1896 & 1897)
Port Hope High School Commencement Exercises (15 Dec 1899), held at the Opera House
Souvenir booklet produced for the 1901 Port Hope Old Boys Reunion, with thanks to Kit Kennard and the Port Hope Archives
The Durham Lodge, No. 78, IOOF annual report, year ending 31 Dec 1907
Community plays performed by Port Hope citizens: Little Snow White (1908); Fi-Fi of the Toy Shop (1915); The Minister's Bride (1917); The Minister's Wife's New Bonnet (1922); Princess Chrysanthemum (1928); That's That (1929); Page the Prince (1930); A Royal Cut-Up (1930); and The Beauty Shop (1933)
Local I.O.O.F. Decoration Day services (1918, 1921, 1923, 1926, and 1939)
A March 2000 article on the frequency of the number 13 in Port Hope house addresses by noted Canadian medical author, Robert E. Popham
Sources of information
The Port Hope Archives is located in the refurbished former County Registry Office at the foot of Walton Street.
The Port Hope Public Library has a number of resources, including microfilms of the available newspapers. The Ancestry (Library Edition) programme can also be accessed at the library.
Porthopehistory.com features an extensive collection of photos and information gathered by the late local historian, Cal Clayton.
Sites, including the Upper Canada Land Petitions, that we have found useful for research.
While happy to search out and transcribe resources for this site, we do not have the time to fill requests for photocopies. If you are looking for information on families beyond what we have on these pages, please contact the Library or the Archives. Please let us know if a hyperlink is not working.
Happy searching...and good luck!
Barbara Kyle & Peter Bolton, UE
Port Hope, Ontario, Canada
trooper14@cogeco.ca
Your help is appreciated
In partnering with us, the Ontario Genealogical Society has assumed our costs of operating this site, as it has done with other sites that it feels should continue to exist when the original owners can no longer maintain them.
As is the case with all charitable organizations, it relies upon donations to help defray these increasing costs. If you would like to help, please click on the 'Donate' logo. Thank you!
Website structural development by Lee R. Batchelor
acre97@outlook.com
Technical Writer - Port Hope, Ontario
Dedicated to the memory of my grandfather, Captain Lawrence Robb Batchelor, 17th Duke of York’s Canadian Hussars, who courageously fought and survived the Somme, Vimy Ridge, and Passchendaele. Did he spend a few moments with some of the Port Hope boys before engaging in one of those battles? I would like to think so.
Material provided is for personal use only and not to be used for profit.
Copyright © 2000-2021 PJBolton